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World Health Assembly endorses resolution on precision medicine
At the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly, Member States endorsed a new resolution on Precision medicine: a path towards targeted, personalized and equitable care, taking an important step towards advancing precision medicine as part of efforts to strengthen equitable, effective and sustainable health systems. Precision medicine refers to the use of clinical, molecular, genomic and other health data to inform prevention, diagnosis and treatment, taking into account variability while applying appropriate ethical and legal safeguards. When integrated responsibly into health systems, precision approaches can improve outcomes across different disease areas and across the life course – from cancer and rare diseases to infectious diseases, maternal, newborn and child health, mental health and noncommunicable diseases. The resolution reflects rapid advances in genomics, diagnostics, data science and digital health, alongside widening global inequities in access to these innovations. Many populations – particularly in low- and middle-income countries – remain underrepresented in data and research, limiting the public health impact of precision medicine and risking the widening of health disparities if action is not taken now. "Precision medicine is not an aspirational idea for health delivery in the future – it is already transforming lives across the world. But its benefits remain out of reach for too many and the research driving progress is concentrated in high income countries. This WHA resolution gives global health leaders, ministries of health, and WHO a clear mandate: to act. From infant screening to setting up genomic databases WHO will work with countries to bring about the power of these innovations." Dr Meg Doherty, Director Science for HealthThrough the resolution, Member States commit to developing and strengthening national policies, infrastructure, workforce capacity and governance frameworks to support the safe, ethical and equitable integration of precision medicine into health systems, aligned with universal health coverage. This includes promoting affordability, ensuring inclusive research and data systems, strengthening regulation and data governance, and fostering collaboration across sectors and regions.WHO is requested to provide technical and normative support, review and coordinate existing guidance, facilitate global and regional collaboration, and develop a Global Strategy on Precision Medicine to guide equitable and context‑appropriate implementation. WHO stands ready to support Member States through tools such as a country maturity model for countries to self-assess capacity in implementing precision medicine depending on their context. In the immediate term WHO will map all existing guidance and frameworks and host extensive consultations with interest holders globally.By placing equity, inclusion and public value at the centre of precision medicine, the resolution reinforces WHO’s commitment to ensuring that scientific advances benefit all people, everywhere, and that no one is left behind in the next era of health innovation."By uniting people-centered healthcare with innovation, precision medicine has the potential to transform lives. This resolution helps ensure those advances serve the shared goal of health for all." Dr Sylvie Briand, Chief Scientist For further information please visit the Health Topic: Genomics
The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Congress revives stalled housing legislation, though snags remain
A rare show of bipartisanship before midterm elections while the country is short millions of units for people to live
Organizations Around the Country Support EPA’s Science-Based Reassessment of Formaldehyde
ACC applauds EPA’s updated draft risk evaluation, joining a broader and growing chorus of support from organizations across the country
Public health in action: from detection to response – how International Health Regulations (2005) guided response to hantavirus outbreak
In a world where people can cross borders in minutes, an infectious disease event – such as the cluster of hantavirus cases on the MV Hondius cruise ship – can quickly become a multi-country challenge.The International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) are the legally binding global framework that obligates countries to prevent, prepare for, detect, report and respond to public health threats that cross borders.When the United Kingdom notified WHO on 2 May 2026 of a cluster of severe respiratory illness cases aboard a Netherlands-flagged cruise ship in the Atlantic, passengers from 23 countries were on board. Within days, cases of hantavirus (Andes strain) had been confirmed in the Netherlands, South Africa and Switzerland. The ship was still at sea.What followed was one of the most complex multi-country outbreak responses in recent years – and a direct test of the IHR.
Businesses report lower traffic for spring season following hill country flooding
INGRAM — For Howdy’s Bar and Chill, settled along the Guadalupe River in Ingram, having only a few people looking for a beer at the bar has become a regular sce
Something Good: Tallahassee business surprised with brand-new pressure washer after recent theft
Hill Top Country Store is a popular stop for locals and travelers along U-90 is thankful for a gift from a community member after a recent theft.
National upheaval helped bring demise of Mike Duggan's campaign
Duggan told his supporters, in a letter, the mood of the country had shifted since he launched his campaign on Dec. 4, 2024.
Normal LIVE has live entertainment acts for all interests
Normal LIVE is back with another season of programming suited to tickle anyone’s fancy. Music and live entertainment offerings vary widely, from kid-specific programming to brass, country, storytelling, and everything in between. Shows take place ...
Meta settles first US case over school costs tied to youth mental health, court filing shows
Meta Platforms on Thursday reached a settlement in the first case set for trial in litigation seeking to make social media companies cover the costs school districts across the country say they have incurred to combat a youth mental health crisis allegedly fueled by their platforms.
Americans witness the most corrupt week of Donald Trump’s political career
Over just three days, the country has confronted several presidency-defining scandals — and the week isn’t over yet.
Lancaster Country Day School senior wins Chemistry competition at prestigious international science fair
Lancaster Country Day School senior wins Chemistry competition at prestigious international science fair
A Lancaster County Day senior won top honors at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, AZ, the school announced Thursday. Kienle, who has spent his junior and senior years at the ...
Cyprus: YouTuber takes direct democracy push to polls
Cypriot YouTuber and MEP Fidias Panayiotou wants to disrupt his country's political system. His digital-first Direct Democracy movement is seen by some as democratic renewal, by others as social media populism.
Nursing board suspends Camp Mystic chief health officer’s license
Mary Liz Eastland is accused of endangering campers during the July 4 flash flood that killed 27 guests at the Texas Hill Country retreat
Mental health support expands following deadly floods in Texas Hill Country
The Community Foundation has allocated $5 million in grants to 15 nonprofits and pledged an additional $10 million over two years to support long-term mental health recovery following the Hill Country flood.
Bonus 228: The $1.776B Political Question
Every so often a story comes along that is so brazen, so cleanly emblematic of the moment we are living through, that staying quiet about it feels like a kind of complicity unto itself. Monday’s announcement by the Department of Justice that the Acting Attorney General has unilaterally created a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate so-called “victims of lawfare” is one of those stories. And the reason I want to write about it here, in a newsletter ostensibly devoted to the Supreme Court and the law and politics surrounding it, is that I’m increasingly worried that we’re asking the wrong institution to save us from one of the most offensive, alarming, and anti-constitutional things we’ve seen from any president in American history. As I explain below the fold, the Anti-Weaponization Fund is not principally a legal problem awaiting a judicial fix. It is a shockingly egregious political abuse—the President suing his own government, purporting to settle with himself, and routing nearly $2 billion from the Treasury to his own supporters as a not-so-subtle (and not-so-formal) reward, if not an incentive, for political violence. And the Constitution’s answer to political abuses of this kind and magnitude is a political remedy, not a legal one. In his majority opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius (the Affordable Care Act case from 2012), Chief Justice Roberts defended the Court’s endorsement of Congress’s power to adopt the individual mandate by noting that it is “not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” As much of a judicial supremacist as I am, that sentiment is, for better or worse, an entirely correct (and, in the long term, normatively desirable) institutional assessment. One can believe in substantial judicial power without believing that literally every political dispute in our country can and should be resolved by unelected judges. The real upshot of this latest headline (among so, so many other similar headlines) is that it is past time to reinvigorate impeachment—not because conviction is realistic in this Senate, or even because impeachment itself is feasible in this House, but because forcing every member of Congress to vote on the record whether this brazen, corrosive, and affirmatively dangerous corruption is impeachable is itself a point worth fighting for (and fighting with our friends over). Assuming the courts will save us absolves our political leaders of both responsibility and accountability for allowing this kind of mischief to continue, and it absolves all of us of our responsibility to refuse to tolerate those who would just as quickly shrug their shoulders and move on. For those who aren’t paid subscribers, we’ll be back (no later than) Monday with our continuing coverage of the Supreme Court. For those who are, please read on.
WATCH: Rep. Thomas Massie's full concession speech after defeat in Kentucky GOP primary
“We stirred up something. There is a yearning in this country for someone who will vote for principles over party,” Massie said.
Thomas Massie, a Trump Critic, Causes Latest Midterm Fight Over Israel
In primary races across the country, debates over Israel are taking center stage, dividing Democrats and Republicans alike.
e-Fest's 10th Year Adds Challenge From Tommie Alum's Business - Newsroom | University of St. Thomas
The University of St. Thomas welcomes 25 of the country’s top student startup teams to campus each spring for a three-day e-Fest, the nation’s largest cash-prize competition for undergraduates. In this year’s Innovation Challenge, students worked on a real business challenge from a company founded by a University of St. Thomas alum. “For the 10th anniversary,…
Executives Want Boards to Focus More on Politics, AI Integration
Corporate executives highlighted a few asks of their boards in a new survey: focus more on the country’s political environment, incorporate AI, and link their pay to non-financial metrics.
How America’s Leading Retail Banks Work to Understand their Small Business Clients and Build Frameworks to Support them Best
The Consumer Bankers Association (CBA) is excited to celebrate Small Business Month 2026 with a new series of blogs highlighting the many ways in which America’s leading retail banks are working to support small businesses on Main Streets across the country. This blog showcases how three CBA members – TD…
UA Little Rock School of Business Golf Tournament Raises More Than $88,000 for Student Support
The UA Little Rock School of Business celebrated the success of its 15th annual golf tournament on May 18 at Pleasant Valley Country Club, raising more than $88,800 in gifts ... UA Little Rock School of Business Golf Tournament Raises More Than $88,000 for Student Support
Politics Is a Mother
Across New Jersey and around the country, more women are stepping into leadership roles and using their voices to help shape policies that impact families,
Wednesday morning sports: lacrosse, baseball, softball highlights
Video from several games, scores from across the north country.
The Latino Electorate: Shaping Texas Politics
Abstract Excerpted From: Armand J. Avila, The Latino Electorate: Shaping Texas Politics, 41 Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review 1 (2025) (134 Footnotes) (Full Document). Texas is incredibly diverse, with one survey ranking the state second in diversity among all states in the country based on various racial, socioeconomic, cultural, and household metrics....
‘Choo Choo Revue’: Bob Baker Marionette Theater's new show
For the iconic L.A. troupe, this fantastical representation of a cross-country train trip is a bold look toward the future.
Radiology Associates of North Texas says it will waste over $51M on costs related to No Surprises Act
The country’s largest independent imaging group—located in Fort Worth and employing about 300 physicians—calculated the figure based on an internal analysis of its billing practices.
2026 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Award
Undergraduate senior biochemistry student Lillian Ott (Mohanty group) has been awarded the 2026 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship, one of the country’s most prestigious honors for graduate students in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). The program, jointly sponsored by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, supports doctoral students across a broad range of scientific and technological fields of strategic importance. This highly competitive fellowship provides full tuition, fees, and a monthly stipend for three years. In 2026, only 102 fellowships were awarded nationwide. Lillian also received an honorable mention for the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Studying biochemistry at UCLA, Lillian became excited about how her physical science background could be applied to solve environmental issues. She joined the Subsurface Engineering Analysis Laboratory (SEA Lab) led by Professor Sanjay Mohanty in the Samueli’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. In the SEA lab, she has studied the fate and transport of per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS are ubiquitous “forever chemicals” and known carcinogens that impact water quality worldwide. This fall, she will begin her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University with Professor Nina Zhao. Her research will be focused on metabolomics and the discovery of unrecognized chemical determinants of environmental and human health. “I have seen the serious and unforeseen environmental and health consequences from man-made chemicals like PFAS and microplastics, which are often only appreciated after the damage has been done. I hope that my research can lead to more sustainable chemical design and inform policy and solutions-based innovation in public health and water quality engineering,” Lillian said. Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
Jahmiel Jackson, 24, seeks to shake up Philly politics with independent run for Congress
ATLANTA — Jahmiel Jackson, one of the youngest congressional candidates in the country, is looking to reshape politics during the 2026 midterm cycle. While he started out in the race as a Democrat,…
Science and Immigration Are Interconnected: On Higher Education, ICE, and the Assault on DEI
One day in graduate school, I confessed to my fellow students that I had never been outside of the United States. They hailed from all over the world, so I was embarrassed to admit it. “You don’t need to leave the country,” one of them replied, “Here, the world comes to you!” In many ways, he was ri
Fortnite Returns to the App Store Worldwide as Epic Signals 'Final Battle' With Apple
Fortnite is back on the App Store in every country except Australia, Epic Games announced today, as the company declared it is entering the "final battle" of its long-running legal dispute with Apple. Epic said the decision to push Fortnite back onto iOS globally was prompted by Apple's own words to the U.S.
SEC post-spring power rankings: Texas leads pack while Texas A&M, Alabama headline fluid middle tier
The deepest conference in the country has at least seven teams with legitimate College Football Playoff hopes heading into 2026
These men voted for President Trump. They have very different views of how he's doing
Two Black men from Georgia who voted for President Trump in 2024 have very different views of how the country is doing now, in the first installment of Swing Shift from NPR's Tamara Keith.
Bay Area first responders graduate from mental health program aimed at helping their own: 'It's a new tool'
Law enforcement officers across the country are facing a growing mental health crisis, with suicides continuing to outpace line-of-duty deaths in many years.
Greenberg Traurig's Entertainment & Media Practice Congratulates Clients Recognized with Academy of Country Music Awards
/PRNewswire/ -- Greenberg Traurig, LLP's Entertainment & Media Practice congratulates its clients for their achievements at the 61st Academy of Country Music...
Video: Graham Platner: ‘We Need a Political Revolution’
Graham Platner, a Democrat, is hoping to defeat Susan Collins in Maine’s Senate race this fall. On “The Interview,” he talks about why the country needs to find a way to rebuild the political system.
Clashes as Morales-allied protesters march on Bolivian capital
South American country suffers huge protests as economic crisis fuels unrest against President Paz's government.
Inside a country music fever dream at the ACM Awards: A Blake Shelton cover, a facial hair epidemic and Keith Urban gossip
The gossip was flowing and the feet were stomping at the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards. We had some boots on the ground.
Inside a country music fever dream at the ACM Awards: A Blake Shelton cover, facial hair epidemic and Keith Urban gossip
The gossip was flowing and the feet were stomping at the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards. We had some boots on the ground.
Health leaders offer safety tips after Colorado hantavirus death
Colorado has recorded the second-highest number of hantavirus cases in the country since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention starting tracking cases in 1993.
Lauren Alaina Tears Up While Addressing Mental Health at ACM Awards
Singer Lauren Alaina broke down in tears while introducing Dan + Shay ahead of their performance at the Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday.
Atlanta ranked nation's best sports business city ahead of World Cup
Atlanta has been named the top sports business city in the country by Sports Business Journal.
Atlanta ranked nation's best sports business city ahead of World Cup
Atlanta has been named the top sports business city in the country by Sports Business Journal.
Ebola outbreak prompts U.S. to screen travelers at airports, other ports of entry
The U.S. is relying on a special public health authority to bar non-U.S. passport holders who have been to Uganda, Congo or South Sudan from entering the country.
'It's kind of a no-brainer': Why pop band MUNA is tackling politics on album 'Dancing on the Wall'
“Dancing on the Wall” is a departure from MUNA’s previous work, trading the sunshine-y pop instrumentals, country influences and sweeping ballads of their self-titled album for gritty, atmospheric tracks influenced by 1990s punk and rave scenes.
Las Vegas entertainment schedule adds country, rock, Latin and Christian acts
Promoters on Monday rolled out a sweeping expansion of the Las Vegas entertainment calendar, announcing a slate of major shows stretching from midsummer through the end of the year…
Cassidy primary defeat is a 'loss for the country,' Romney says
Former Sen. Mitt Romney calls Bill Cassidy's Louisiana Republican primary defeat a loss for the country as Trump revels in the senator's ouster.
Country music star cancels tour: ‘I need to be honest with myself’
The 39-year-old shared the news on social media.
Louder than noise: Noam Bettan let music, not politics, define his performance
Israelis can take pride in Bettan, who represented the country with professionalism and restraint, blocking out all the outside noise to deliver a stellar performance.
Ella Langley dominates the ACM Awards honoring the best in country music
The Academy of Country Music Awards' ceremony was Ella Langley’s night from the start. Sunday night's first honor, for the coveted song of the year, went to Langley for the
Stars at the ACM Awards do the iconic 'Let's Go Girls' by Shania Twain
Shania Twain hosted the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas. Watch stars say her iconic line on the red carpet.
ACM Awards 2026 live updates and winners: Ella Langley wins Artist-Songwriter of the Year; Kacey Musgraves, Shaboozey and others stun on the red carpet
The 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards are finally here. Tonight, the genre's biggest and brightest stars will gather at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in their finest red carpet looks to celebrate a st...
Sunday Sports: Remembering Kirk Ventiquattro
Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Sunday.
Science 4 Everyone: Where do the most tornadoes take place in the United States?
Have you ever wondered where the most tornadoes happen in the country? Storm Team4 meteorologist and science teacher Ryan Miller tracks tornado patterns over the past few decades.
Country music star left a ‘vast archive’ of unreleased music after his recent death
The beloved singer died in December.
How to watch the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards tonight: Who's nominated, where to stream, and more
Here's how to watch the 2026 ACM Awards this Sunday.
What GOP officials are hopeful — and worried — about six months from the midterms
NBC News spoke to roughly 30 Republican National Committee members and GOP activists around the country about how the party can keep control of Congress in November.
India’s loudest political fight obscures a more urgent one
The country’s collapsing cities could benefit from plans to redraw the electoral map
The ungovernable country? Why Britain keeps losing prime ministers
May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, and now perhaps Starmer: each one was brought low for a reason. But what if the deeper problem is the office itself?
South Korea says it will pursue all options to avoid Samsung strike
South Korea will pursue all options, including emergency arbitration, to avoid a labour strike at the country's biggest employer Samsung Electronics and to minimise any damage if one does occur, its prime minister said on Sunday.
Iran's status for World Cup gains some clarity
Iran announced its preliminary World Cup roster on Saturday following meetings with FIFA that appeared to make progress toward the country participating in the tournament.
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
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Chartbook 449: Voldemort on Threadneedle street. The Bank of England and the "haunted house" of English politics.
Imagine the scene: In some Harry Potter version of 21st-century London, a group of deathless UK Treasury officials gathered from across the last century huddle over warm pints and glasses of Chardonnay. Around the table there are officials from the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1970s, 2022 and today. Inevitably, in May 2026, the subject of conversation is the disintegration of the current Labour government. Despite its huge majority in parliament, it has been reduced to tatters by catastrophic local election result. These exposed the fact that rather than having a government with a clear popular majority, the UK is like most other modern societies divided into 5 segments each of which commands between 26 and 16 percent of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street - where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (Treasury Secretary) work - seem paralyzed. They are caught between mounting discontent over unfairness and the cost of living, and tough fiscal strictures that push them into making unpopular spending decisions. In the London pub, the Treasury officials from across the ages, can barely hide their satisfaction at the latest display of democratic politics caught in the vice-grip of financial logic. “Remember the mur d’argent and the banker’s ramp?” “Just like yesterday!” There are smirks around the table. Then the representative of 2026 pipes up: “One thing you have to say about the current lot (referring to the latest hapless Labour government), you don’t have to teach them about the bond market!” There is a murmur of ascent from the Treasury Mandarins. The trauma of the fiscal crisis of September-October 2022 sits deep. Back then, in the final stages of Tory decay, a ‘mini budget’ that challenged fiscal orthodoxy led to a brief but fierce panic in one of the oldest government bond markets in the world (aka gilt market). Now all you have to do is to mention the “bond market” to hush debate. [ Paul Mason@paulmasonnews In the name of public service, and as ex-economics editor of BBC Newsnight, I offer to do a zoom call, tonight, with any Labour MP who wants to understand why bond markets do not "fall into line" with governments. 1/ 3:57 PM · May 12, 2026 · 466K Views 224 Replies · 674 Reposts · 3.93K Likes ](https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2054229532404519082?s=20) “And the funny thing is”, the young man in the huddle continues, “they don’t even want to talk about … ”. There is a sudden hush. Significant looks are exchanged around the table. About? One of the senior figures puts down his glass with a decisive “clink”. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has entered their thoughts. Meanwhile, a few miles away in a grubby pub in Bloomsbury, two conspirators from the camp of Critical Macrofinance huddle over cans of low-alcohol IPA. They look at each other and blurt out loud: “The Bank!” “Everyone in the bloody Labour party is talking about the bond market. But why aren’t they even mentioning … the Bank of England!?” “Why is no one talking about Voldemort?” In Paul Mason’s blogpost, after much chest-thumping about basic fiscal logic, the basic point about the Bank of England is buried in the fine print at #3 in his list of suggestions as to what a radical Labour government might actually be able to do! [ Conflict & Democracy Down with the bond market! Down with gravity! It may seem unfair to focus on Labour MP Paula Barker for her off-the-cuff assertion that the bond market would have to “fall in line” with Andy Burnham, should he replace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But Burnham himself told the New Statesman that Labour had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets… Read more 2 days ago · 100 likes · 3 comments · Paul Mason ](https://htsf.substack.com/p/down-with-the-bond-market-down-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Back in Bloomsbury they shake their heads and ask: “Didn’t we learn anything from the Eurozone crisis?” Meanwhile, as if summoned to the conversation by some higher force, the “pink pages” announce: “The days of ultra-cheap government borrowing have come to an end” and Martin “Whizzard” Wolf publishes the graph of the season Look at the UK in 2026, perilously positioned on the upper edge of the pack. No wonder no one in London needs any lessons about the “bond market”. But, look again. Imagine how they feel in Rome. What is London’s nightmare in 2026? The nightmare is that you end up like Italy in the early 2010s during the Eurozone crisis. Once comfortably situated in the middle of the pack, watching with horror as your ten-year yields explode to 7 percent and “spreads” become a national nightmare. One of the largest economies in Europe, a founding member of the euro, stigmatized. But the message of the Italian experience is ambiguous. After all, the stigma didn’t last. In 2026, Italy borrows at rates lower not only than the UK but the US. The US, which, as everyone knows, enjoys the “exorbitant privilege” of being the issuer of reserve, safe asets. What kind of magic is this? How did Italy, in the space of fifteen years, go from being good, to bad and back again? Which brings us back to our dissident friends in their Bloombury boozer and their memories of the Eurozone crisis. Italy never was Britain - with its ongoing fiscal deficits. Without interest payments, on primary balance, from 2000 to 2020 Italy ran a tight fiscal ship. Even in 2008 it barely went into deficit and when it was being put on the rack in the early 20210s its primary surplus matched that of austere Germany. So, what happened? How did it end up stigmatized? Of course Italian politics didn’t help. Berlusconi was at the helm and he had legal issues. But amongst friends in the Bloomsbury pub, Berlusconi is a sideshow, the name we whisper to each other is “Trichet”. From 2004 to 2011 the ECB was headed by Jean-Claude Trichet, ex of the French Treasury, more German than the Germans. After 2009 as the news of the Greek fiscal disaster broke, the European bond markets wento into panic mode and Trichet began a brutal game of cat and mouse. Between 2009 and 2011, Trichet intervened in the bond market to help, only when he thought he had compliance with austerity. When he thought they were uncooperative, he withdrew. In the summer of 2011, he even made direct suggestions to his Italian counterparts in Rome, as to how Italy should be governed. It was this cat and mouse game that drove the bond markets crazy and exposed Italy to a violent squeeze. When Mario Draghi took over the ECB at the end of 2011 and declared “whatever it takes”, the pressure on Italy, gradually eased. It is that starring role that has made Draghi into the towering figure in European politics that he remains today. So now you see why voices in London hush when it comes to the Bank of England. “The bond market” isn’t an irresistible objective force like the weather or an avalanche. It can appear like that. But that depends on the way it is being handled, or not handled by the central bank. Which is why the silence about the Bank of England in London right now is so significant. If you think this all sounds a bit fishy, coming from a left-liberal Keynesian like myself, well, let me introduce you to Robin Brooks, who, to put it mildly, plays on a different quidditch team to me. Here, from the position of a fiscal hawk is Robin’s celebratory account of the Bank of England’s role since 2022; In October 2022, at the height of the bond market blow-up in the UK, something incredible happened. Governor Andrew Bailey told British pension funds the Bank of England would end its support program for the country’s fragile gilt market, drawing a line under how much help the central bank was willing to give to exposed pension funds and - implicitly - the government. By the end of that week, Kwasi Kwarteng - the finance minister - had resigned. Prime Minister Liz Truss would soon follow. This episode is so incredible because it contrasts with what happened in the Euro zone earlier that year. Bond markets in Spain and Italy were under pressure amid high inflation and rising interest rates. In the middle of this, Mario Draghi - Italy’s Prime Minister - resigned, compounding pressure on bond markets of high-debt countries on the Euro periphery. Unlike the Bank of England, the ECB caved. It bought Italian and Spanish government bonds in an effort to cap yields and introduced a new tool that signaled to markets it might do such caps more frequently going forward. Faced with pressure on bond markets, the ECB capitulated to political pressure from high-debt countries like Italy and Spain. The Bank of England stood its ground and toppled the Truss government. This kind of thing has long-lasting consequences. It means markets price a higher probability of yield caps in the Euro zone, which keeps Italian and Spanish yields artificially low, while markets feel free to push up UK yields without fear of central bank intervention. As I flagged in yesterday’s post, this means you really can’t compare UK yields to those of other high-debt countries. The UK looks worse, but only because its central bank isn’t interfering with markets. There’s more to this than just that 2022 episode. The Bank of England has also been much more aggressive in its quantitative tightening (QT) than other central banks. If one motivation for quantitative easing (QE) is to lower bond yields - especially longer-dated ones - then it stands to reason QT pushes yields up. The left chart above shows a four-quarter moving average of UK government debt issuance (black line) in percent of GDP and which sectors absorb this issuance, including the Bank of England (blue bars). The right chart above compares the Bank of England’s accumulation or run-off of government bonds (blue line) with that of other central banks, where this blue line is the same as the blue bars in the left chart. The Bank of England was quicker and more aggressive than other central banks in downsizing its bond holdings, so UK yields will have risen more than elsewhere also for this reason, not just because of Governor Andrew Bailey’s remarks in October 2022. Back in October 2025, after a conversation in New York with friends in British politics, my sense of dysphoria was such that I raised the issue of the Bank of England openly in the FT Since 2008, the UK has slid into a deep economic and political predicament. Growth has stagnated to a degree far worse even than in the 1970s. The Tory leadership’s wager on the Brexit referendum spectacularly backfired, leaving the UK isolated from Europe and at the mercy of its special relationship with the US, many of whose political class regard the UK as a basket case. After years of austerity, the Labour party lurched to the left and then back to the centre. The Tory party has been eclipsed by the populist nationalism of Reform. Any British government should be worrying first and foremost about how to restart growth. Instead, Keir Starmer is beset by shades of the gilt market panic triggered by the Liz Truss government in 2022. The debt level is higher than in recent years, but there is no cause for panic. UK debt is at far from critical levels and of long duration. Whether you want to “take back control” or launch progressive economic policy, a democracy dogged by fear of bond market vigilantes is unhealthy. In a country that is a monetary sovereign, this climate points to one thing: a disconnect between the government and the central bank. Since 1997, the independence of the Bank of England has become a sacred cow. But independence is what you make of it. And in the wake of the gilt market crisis of September 2022, relations between the Bank of England and the UK government need a reset. In normal times, there is no doubt that an inflation-targeting independent central bank can serve a country well. But since 2008, the UK and other advanced economies have not had the luxury of such simple problems. To their credit, central bankers around the world have not stood on orthodoxy. After 2008, the US Federal Reserve rescued the global banking system and, through quantitative easing, it stabilised the Treasury market in the face of huge deficits. In Europe, things were trickier. Both the Bank of England under Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet’s European Central Bank played cat and mouse with national governments. This was a high stakes wager that between 2010 and 2012 escalated bond market tension and triggered a disastrous turn to austerity. Shaken by the impact of those shocks, their successors, Mark Carney and Mario Draghi adopted a more protective stance (assuming you were not the government of Greece). Recall that Draghi’s legendary slogan, “Whatever it takes”, was uttered to face down the City of London’s bond vigilantes. In 2015, Draghi launched QE — financial repression by another name. In 2016, Carney used the authority of the Bank of England to stabilise markets following the vote for Brexit, an exemplary demonstration of how central banks can underpin democratic choice, even when those choices are wrong headed. All these were independent central bankers steeped in the best practice of the 1990s, who recognised that historic crises demanded radical action. It was the price surge of 2021-2023 that poisoned the atmosphere. Though the shock came mainly from the supply side, central banks ended up in the dock. Nowhere more so than in the UK. The Bank of England reacted with aggressive normalisation. Faced with a cost of living crisis, the governor called for workers to accept real wage cuts. In early 2022, as gas prices were at record levels and Russia’s army was poised to invade Ukraine, the Bank adopted a stringent programme of quantitative tightening, elevating interest rates. When the Truss government got itself in trouble, the Bank took almost a week to come to the rescue. Rather than enacting a charade of normality, it is time to recognise that in 2025 the UK faces a period of historic transition. To meet this challenge, what is needed is a new concordat with the Bank. This should not ignore inflationary pressures or the long-run trajectory of debt, but should affirm the priority of reviving investment-led growth. One could follow Donald Trump in demanding interest rate cuts. The Bank could shadow the ECB in its commitment to capping Eurozone yields. But the top priority should be to lay the ghost of September 2022. The Bank’s slowing of QT last month was a concession. An immediate and complete end would send the right signal. Such a concordat will not by itself restore sanity to politics, solve the housing problem or rebuild the NHS. But it would help to lift the fear of bond market crisis, which is paralysing the effort by democratic politicians to answer the fundamental questions facing the nation. Now, that call for a new concordat between government and Bank of Englands seems more urgent than ever. The problem is that in October 2025, Starmer still had some authority. Today the government is in tatters. And when you are the “under the harrow” - to echo a phrase of Montagu Norman’s from the 1920s - it is the worst possible time to consider institutional change. To make general arguments at a time of crisis can only seem like special pleading rather than a general argument for long-term change. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the other basic institutional reform that Britain urgently needs i.e. the abolition of the out-dated first past the post electoral system and its replacement by a moderated form of proportional representation. And thirdly - whilst we are saying the quiet parts out loud - Britain needs to reopen the question of EU membership. What the local election results of 2026 show is that this remains a key issue. And what they also show is that there is a clear majority that would favor a return. Until these basic features of Britain’s political economy are addressed the country will carry on its politics as though in a haunted house, governed by governments that lack actual majorities, conjuring up false constraints whilst ignoring the real ones. This one is for DG and MI. I love writing the newsletter. If you enjoy it too and fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Click below! Subscribe
The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
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